Conservation and Environment in Mexico: Monthly Updates

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Conservation in Mexico - Monthly Update June/July 2010

The Rains are here.

There are not enough words able to express how grateful we are regarding the visits we have been having from the volunteers in the 2 Weeks Special program. The boost to the project is amazing, and the camp is improving dramatically. Sometimes it is quite hard for our visitors to see true change in the project while they are with us, as they are in camp only for a couple of weeks but I definitely assure you that the amount of help they provide has a great impact in the whole project.

The volunteers have been working hard at all the tasks. Including tasks like rubbish collection from our beaches, as these last rains have brought a lot of waste from the river Coguyana that borders the south side of our patrol. The last intense rains have washed off a lot of debris that had fallen into the river, it was really lucky that we had the presence of so many volunteers in camp at the moment. We were able to collect most of it in a really short time!

We are now reaching the peak in our turtle high season. Recently we have been collecting around 10 nests nightly on slow days and in the second week of July we had our very first wind effect. This might have been due to the last remnants on the tides brought by the presence of Hurricane Alex on the gulf of Mexico combined with the effect of the waning moon but we were able to collect over 80 nests in just one night! This gave our volunteers the opportunity to work along with our local staff in order to protect all these nests in our incubation areas. This is just the beginning and we are truly looking forward for the challenges to come.

The work in the Crocodile farm still carries on. At the moment we are waiting for the eggs we collected to hatch, in the mean time we are focusing on restoring the areas where the crocodiles come out to take the sun in order to maintain their inner temperatures, it is hard work to mold the shores of the lagoon but it is work that must be done.

Volunteers have also been working hard on carrying on with new building projects. The new warehouse we have built will leave the old classroom area to become exclusively for our volunteers recreation. This relatively small change improves the comfort and experience our volunteers get while they visit us.

Thanks again to all the volunteers who have helped in the last couple of months!